Leadership, Teamwork, Responsibility, and Wisdom...We've been busy!

Thanks to Mr. Lynn and Mr. Carlyon for getting my computer all straightened out!  This post is long overdue.  Our class has been extremely busy.  To avoid writing a small novel here, I've tried to crystallize the most important events into four categories: leadership, teamwork, responsibility, and wisdom.

Leadership
The United States citizens elected our president last week.  Our students also participated in the KidsVote election.  Some of our fifth graders served as exit poll reporters, interviewing Captain kids about the election and their voting experience.  It was an exciting day, and I appreciated how seriously the students took this learning opportunity as leaders in the school.

Teamwork
Our class also began working in the science lab last week on our first unit focusing on variables and experiment design.  They participated in a couple of engineering challenges which required them to work as a team to solve a problem in a limited amount of time.  You could duplicate these challenges at home for fun, if you want.  The kids did a great job communicating with one another and encouraging creative thinking and problem solving in their teams.

Responsibility
I have noticed that the students have grown in their maturity from the beginning of this year, especially in regards to their assignments.  They are taking their work seriously and have shown greater stamina and dedication to doing their best work.  Check out this responsibility: the dog at her homework, and she still had it for school!  I love it!

Wisdom
Finally, we had the amazing opportunity to see the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, speak yesterday at Clayton High School.  What a fabulous opportunity!

Here are some "Nuggets of Wisdom from Jeff Kinney" the students wrote down after hearing him speak:

Rejections make you better.

Compromise is good.

You can get ideas from the smallest things.

Follow your dreams, even when things don't go as planned at first.